


Maybe Everyone Is Wrong

by gamerfic



Series: In Sleep [6]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alcohol, Cassandra Pentaghast: Relationship Counselor, Cassandra and Lavellan's Ultimate Slumber Party, Drunken Shenanigans, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Humor, Minor Cassandra Pentaghast/Regalyan D'Marcall, Minor Iron Bull/Dorian Pavus, POV First Person, Post-Break Up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-12
Packaged: 2018-03-30 04:10:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3922399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerfic/pseuds/gamerfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seeker Cassandra Pentaghast would do anything to ensure that the Inquisition achieves its goals. If that means getting the Inquisitor drunk and trying to talk her through her recent break-up with Solas, then so be it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maybe Everyone Is Wrong

Cassandra ambushed me in the corridor outside the war room, where I had just concluded with yet another prolonged discussion of troop movements, squabbles amongst the nobility, bothersome wildlife, and all of the other dangers and annoyances being laid at the Inquisition's feet. I had deliberately kept myself busy since my return from the Arbor Wilds, traveling whenever I could find the excuse and working from sunrise to sunset around Skyhold when I couldn't. The meeting with the war council was the last thing that Josephine had scheduled for me on this particular day, and Cassandra knew it. "Might I have a word with you, Inquisitor?" she said, inclining her head to me with a stiffness that exceeded even her usual formality.

"Of course," I said, hoping I sounded more alert than I felt. "What do you need?" If Cassandra knew how tired I really was, she might insist on delaying her plans until a later time, and I badly wanted a distraction. I wasn't ready to face the vast, empty bed in my quarters yet.

"Please come with me," Cassandra said, and I followed her out through the main hall of Skyhold. Nobles and soldiers greeted us or tried to get our attention as we passed, but she rebuffed each one of them with a crisp wave of her hand. As we descended the stairs into the courtyard, I failed to stifle a loud yawn. Cassandra turned to me abruptly and stated, "You have not been sleeping well, Inquisitor." She spoke like she fought, bluntly and directly, her words probing as deftly and relentlessly as the tip of her sword for any opening in my defenses.

"I've had a lot on my mind lately with the Well and everything," I said. In truth, a few days after my encounter with Abelas at the Temple of Mythal, the clamor of the Well of Sorrows had greatly diminished for no reason that I could discern. Most of the time it was little more than a muted, almost imperceptible murmur that required sustained concentration to hear at all. Of course, Cassandra didn't need to know that right now. The Well of Sorrows made a convenient excuse for many things.

"As have we all. However, only one of us regularly shows up in the kitchens two bells before sunrise in search of strong tea. Or nods off in the throne room while hearing petitions."

"Oh, for the love of - That only happened once, Cassandra. And I'll have you know that even Josephine considered the Margrave of Deauvin's border disputes with his cousins to be an uncommonly dry subject."

"Be that as it may, the Inquisition needs you at your best, more than it needs anyone else. And as of late, you have not been at your best." In response, I made a vague, evasive noise to which Cassandra did not react. Her steps were slowing, and she said, "We have arrived."

I looked up from the muddy ground and saw that we now stood outside the Herald's Rest. Golden light spilled out of the open windows, accompanied by the sounds of cheerful conversation, raucous celebration, and Maryden playing "Enchanters" for at least the hundredth time. "What's this all about?" I asked.

"I should have expressed myself more clearly before, Inquisitor. I meant to say that I know you have not been at your best lately, and I know that it is because of Solas."

I sighed. Whatever Solas and I had shared - gods, I was less sure now than ever of how to define it - had never exactly been a secret, yet I had rarely spoken about it with others. It was only after he had left me, after I had begun to notice sadness and sympathy in the eyes of total strangers as I passed them at Skyhold and in the Inquisition's camps, that I had fully understood how many people had known about us. _Then again,_ I thought, _no matter how discreet we may have been, his parting gift to me was hardly subtle._ I rubbed at my face where my _vallaslin_ had once been, a newfound habit I couldn't seem to break. "And?" I said with irritation.

Without replying, Cassandra escorted me into the tavern. Our arrival seemed to please the patrons inside; a few soldiers called out to us in friendly, booming voices, and Krem raised his cup in greeting from his habitual chair. She led me to the bar and sat us both down on the high stools. "Cabot, the special vintage we discussed, please," she said to the dwarven bartender, then turned back to me. "You have told me many times before that you trust my judgment, Inquisitor. Tonight, my judgment tells me that you are distracted, preoccupied, and entirely consumed with feeling sorry for yourself." I opened my mouth to object, but she pressed on. "It is my duty to do everything in my power to change that, so you can devote your full attention to the Inquisition again."

"Seriously?"

Cabot set a tray down between us, interrupting Cassandra's monologue. It held some torn-off chunks of brown bread, a few sausages, a sliver of cheese, slices from a shriveled apple, and a green glass bottle flanked by two slender glasses. Cassandra pulled the cork from the bottle and poured a thin stream of dark purple liquid into each glass. "Nevarran plum wine, from what I am told was an exceptional year," she said. "I wonder how long it spent in Skyhold's wine cellar before I happened across it."

"We have a wine cellar?"

"Apparently so." She held out one of the glasses to me. I didn't take it. "Hear me out, Inquisitor. At least for tonight, allow yourself to be a patron of the Herald's Rest like any other. Relax. Drown your sorrows. Talk to me, if you like, and I will listen. But whatever you choose to do, I will not permit you to leave this tavern until you have had enough wine to grant yourself at least one good night of sleep."

I searched her stoic features for any sign that she was joking, but found none. "I wouldn't have taken you for the type to suggest that I drink away my troubles, Cassandra."

"Normally, I am not. However, there are certain problems that only inebriation can solve. A broken heart is one of them."

"A broken heart?" I caught myself touching my bare temples again and forced my hands down into my lap. The more I understood about Cassandra's intentions, the less I liked them. "Look, Cassandra, we aren't in one of Varric's books, where everything else has to stop until the heroes can mend their differences and then pair off again on the last page. Solas and I were close, things changed, and in the end it didn't work out between us. That's all. Of course it makes me sad, but it isn't like whatever you're imagining." I hoped I sounded more convincing to her than I did to myself.

"Perhaps if you would talk to me, I would not need to imagine it." Cassandra set my glass down hard on the bar, and wine sloshed over its rim. She made her familiar noise of disgust. "Do you think I am mocking you, Inquisitor? Or have you already made up your mind to spend the rest of your life sulking? If that is the case, simply inform me so I may avoid wasting my time." I leaned back on my stool, startled and a bit stung by her bluntness. She must have noticed, because she closed her eyes for a long moment and took a deep breath. "I am sorry. That was cruel of me. I should not have spoken to you in such a manner. Of course you cannot help your sadness."

"No, I probably deserved that. I wish I could have a few drinks and then be done with it, too. It's just...I don't think this is something you can fix with one night in a tavern."

"I do not expect that I can. I only want to show kindness to a friend - to make things a little better, if only for a night. Let me do that much for you. Please."

Earnestness and frustration battled on Cassandra's face. She _was_ my friend, and her concern for me was understandable. Still, I found it difficult to imagine that someone like her - a Seeker of Truth, a noble, an Andrastian, a _human_ \- could ever truly understand my bond with Solas or why it had broken. Then again, I didn't entirely understand it, either. _She said you don't have to talk to her if you don't want to,_ I reminded myself. _Try to relax, just for one night. Who knows - it might help after all._ So I forced myself to smile with what I hoped was easy congeniality, picked up my glass, and clinked it against hers. "Very well, then. Kindness accepted. Here's to friendship."

"To friendship," she repeated, and we both drank, Cassandra taking a measured sip while I drained my glass in a single gulp. The wine was stronger than I expected, and it burned my throat pleasantly on the way down. Wordlessly, Cassandra refilled my glass and topped off her own. I looked down at the scratched top of the bar and felt her eyes boring into the side of my face. Did she expect me to break down and cry on her shoulder already? I wondered how to kindly tell her that I didn't expect that to happen.

"Oh, come off it, Inky, the wine can't be that bad." I turned toward Sera's voice, hoping the relief I felt at her interruption didn't show. 

"The wine's fine," I said. "Cassandra picked it. She has good taste."

"Right, 'cause in fancy castles they teach you how to pick out fancy booze, sure." Sera took a swig from the unmarked brown jug she was carrying. "So, that must mean you're still brooding over baldy, then?"

I dropped my head into my hands. "Does everybody at Skyhold keep track of everything I do?"

"Not everything, but everyone you do, yeah. You're the big important Inquisitor, right? Of course the little people wonder. Especially after you go out for a nice walk in the woods with him, come back without your elfy dealies acting all mopey and avoid-y. Be hard to miss what you were on about when we all saw how he couldn't stop grabbing your arse at the Winter Palace."

"Sera!" I wanted to be scandalized, but it was so irreverent and utterly _her_ that I laughed in spite of myself. Or maybe the wine was already helping me to take myself less seriously.

Cassandra seemed to be suppressing a smile, too. "We hope to find a cure for the Inquisitor's brooding tonight," she said.

"Neat! Let me help." Sera shoved her way in between Cassandra and me and splashed red liquid out of her jug and into our empty glasses.

A strong odor of alcohol wafted upward as Sera poured, and Cassandra wrinkled her nose. "What is that?"

"Beats me. Tastes like cherries, though. Bottoms up!" Sera put the jug to her lips again. Cassandra and I exchanged perplexed, amused looks and, with a shared shrug, drank as well. Cloying sweetness coated my throat as I swallowed, along with an unidentifiable, vaguely fruity taste that did nothing to disguise the drink's potency.

"Disgusting," I said, and coughed. Cassandra grimaced and reached for one of the sausages to banish the taste from her tongue.

Sera opened her mouth to speak but then abruptly shut it. "You know, what with Cassandra giving me Andraste's own hairy eyeball I don't think I'm gonna say what I was just thinking." Somewhat awkwardly, she patted my shoulder. "What I would have meant by it is, Solas is an arsehole. Not that you made a bad choice being with him."

"It's all right, Sera. I already know you don't like him."

"That's not the point, though. Solas and me won't ever be best mates, but that's on him and not you, innit? And it's not like anybody gets to pick who they want anyhow. I didn't get to pick wanting girls, you didn't get to pick wanting an old bald creeper."

"You make him sound so appealing."

"No! You couldn't have known how he'd be when you fell for him. You find that stuff out later, right? It could happen to anyone." Sera sipped from her jug again and leaned closer, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I used to go with this dwarf girl, had this long red beard, all nice and soft, right? Wasn't until the third time I did her I found out she had a chipmunk living in there. As a pet, like. I went to kiss her and the little furry bastard about bit my bloody tongue clean off."

"You're joking," said Cassandra.

"My hand to the Maker I'm not. It kept nuts up in there and everything. Hahaha, _nuts_." Sera snorted. "I do miss the beard, though. Tickly in all the right places. Isn't that right, Blackwall?"

"Of course, Sera," said Blackwall as he walked through the door, in the cheerful and accepting tone of someone who had long since realized it was better not to debate certain statements whether or not he understood their context.

"Right, I'm off, then," said Sera. "Cheer up, Inky. Or at least drink up."

"I'm trying," I said. "On both counts."

"Try harder." I watched as Sera and Blackwall walked together toward the table usually occupied by Bull and the Chargers. Halfway there she turned around and, with a broad smile on her face, made an obscene gesture. _"Elven glory,"_ she stage-whispered. I laughed again and hurled a chunk of bread at her. She snatched it out of the air and shoved it into her mouth, and we grinned at each other as she sat down at Bull's table.

"Correct me if I'm wrong," I said to Cassandra, who was refilling our glasses, "but was that supposed to be Sera's attempt at consoling me?"

"So it appears," said Cassandra.

"Weirdly, it kind of worked." Motion near the door caught my eye, and I turned to see Varric and Dorian entering the Herald's Rest. "Wait a minute. Don't tell me you invited everyone else, too?"

"I did not. In all honesty, I am not sure why they are here."

Varric must have overheard her, because he called out, "It's our regular night for Wicked Grace, remember, Seeker? It was so much fun the first time around we figured we'd make it a tradition. I keep inviting you, but you keep turning me down. It hardly seems fair of you to praise my novels but cruelly turn your back on my card game."

"I am not much of a gambler, Varric," Cassandra replied.

"Perhaps not, but the Inquisitor is," said Dorian. He extended his hand to me. "Varric planned to invite you too, but lately you haven't been at Skyhold long enough for him to catch up to you. Care to join us? After all, you owe me the chance to win back some of what I lost to you last time."

The offer was more than tempting. I knew I would enjoy playing Wicked Grace with the others again, and if I were occupied with the game, it would prevent whatever awkward heart-to-heart conversation Cassandra still seemed intent on having with me. "Why not?" I said. "That is, as long as you don't mind, Cassandra."

"Do as you please, Inquisitor," she said.

"You're still welcome to join us anytime, Seeker," Varric told Cassandra with a grin. "There's always a seat at my table for the number one fan of _Swords and Shields_."

"You mean the only fan of _Swords and Shields_ ," said Dorian.

Cassandra grunted in disgust again. "If you gentlemen are quite finished bantering, I am afraid I still must decline. Wicked Grace is not really what I had in mind this evening." She looked at me, her expression unreadable, and I wondered if I was offending her by changing my plans on a whim. But then, as if she could guess at what I was thinking, she added, "Enjoy the game, Inquisitor. I hope it helps you to relax."

"I'm sure it will." I stood up and followed Dorian and Varric to the table where Bull, Sera, and Blackwall were already sitting. Varric began to gather the coins for each player's buy-in, and Blackwall shuffled the deck while Sera watched, drinking from her jug and offering various unhelpful suggestions. Cassandra was retreating out the tavern door already, taking the tray of food and wine with her. Dorian slid along the bench to sit next to Bull, and I saw their shoulders bump together with a touch too lingering to be accidental, noticed the faint smiles they exchanged and the way they thought I didn't see how Bull's strong hand fleetingly squeezed Dorian's knee. I looked away, ashamed of the jealousy that I knew was written on my face as clearly as any _vallaslin_ (or lack thereof) I ever bore. I sat down next to Varric and pretended again to be fascinated by the grain of the wooden tabletop.

"She sees his absence in another, like a mirror." I bit back a startled cry and swiveled on the bench to find Cole standing behind me. Even after all this time, I still wasn't used to his abrupt appearances and disappearances. "Her own sadness never found solace. For months it burned unheard beneath her armor. Now she looks at the reflection in the plate and wants it to be different. She can't leave another to languish with no haven."

I sighed. "Cole. If Cassandra can't fix me, then you can't either." When I had returned to Skyhold on the night that Solas had ended it, my heart a tightly clenched fist of confusion and betrayal barely concealed behind a face I no longer recognized, Cole had been waiting at the gates to greet me. Of course he had known what had happened before I said a word to him, had repeated it all back to me in his twisting metaphors while I listened in growing horror. Usually I supported Cole's efforts to make everyone's lives better in his own strange way, but having his compassion focused on me was more painful than I had expected. At times I was tempted to ask him to make me forget everything, to let me start believing that Solas and I had never been more than distant, cordial colleagues - and I knew he would do it if I asked, as surely as I knew I would only regret doing it in the end. So I kept quiet, and Cole kept trying to find a way to fulfill his purpose no matter how many times I thwarted him.

This time, however, Cole only looked confused. "Not you," he said, peering out at me from behind his shaggy blond bangs. "You're not the hero in this story. You're the one who reminds the hero that life goes on even after he's gone. Or she hopes that you will, anyway. No words exchanged, just one last glance from across the temple before it all fell down. Fond, or regretful? His eyes said they would speak of it tomorrow but tomorrow never came. So she waits for the next chapter to be written. She will always be waiting. Will she always wait alone?"

That was when it dawned on me. "You don't mean me," I said. "You're talking about Cassandra." I started scanning the room for her; I didn't see her, but at least she couldn't have gone far. "Gods, I've been such an idiot. I can't believe I didn't understand it before. Thank you, Cole." But he had already vanished. No one else seemed to have noticed his presence at all.

I stood up from the bench, and Varric frowned at me. "Something wrong, Inquisitor?"

"More like something I need to make right," I said. "Thanks for the invitation, Varric. Perhaps I'll join you for your next game." Before he or anyone else could stop me, I was heading for the tavern door, following after Cassandra.

I found her just outside the Herald's Rest in the small side yard where she and the soldiers often trained, sitting on a hay bale and staring out at the fading sunset. She had dispensed with her glass entirely and was now taking long slow drinks directly from the bottle of Nevarran plum wine. "Remind me, how do humans insult each other?" I asked loudly from behind her to get her attention. "You say rude things about each other's mothers, right?"

Slowly, Cassandra turned toward me, trying and failing to disguise the surprise on her face. "In Nevarra, we would say rude things about each other's ancestors, actually," she replied evenly.

I brandished the bottle of cheap red wine I'd bought from Cabot on my way out of the tavern, then pulled its cork and took a swig. It was only after I'd stood up from Varric's Wicked Grace table that I'd discovered I was already well on my way to drunkenness, and it seemed a shame to slow my progress now. "Right," I said. "In that case, your ancestors were all a bunch of arseholes."

"That is accurate," Cassandra said, and I realized she was just as drunk as I was. "And how do elves insult each other? What was that thing you said, to goad that Dalish maleficar out of her cave in the Emerald Graves?"

" _Mar Amelan dav Fen'Harelan galen._ Your Keeper licks the Dread Wolf's balls. You know it's a good taunt when even Solas is appalled by it." I smiled in spite of myself, ignoring the brief spike of pain concealed beneath that memory. "But if you want to stick with the classics you can just say _Fen'Harel ver na._ "

"'Dread Wolf take you,' I'm guessing," she said, and I nodded. "Why are we discussing this?"

"Because as it turns out, I'm terrible at playing my part in the kind of story where friends drunkenly pour out their hearts to each other. That's the one you wanted to tell, right?" I corked my wine and tossed the bottle toward Cassandra, and it rolled to rest at her feet. "But I might do better in the kind of of story where friends drunkenly brawl over a minor misunderstanding and then apologize and talk about their feelings." Someone had left a wooden practice sword leaning against the outer wall of the tavern, and I picked it up and clumsily assumed a fighting posture. "So, now that I've explained myself, fucking fight me." I stabbed lazily in Cassandra's general direction. Instinctually, she seized the tray of food and casually parried my blow, sending rinds of cheese and crusts of bread flying. "This is the part where you insult me back."

She raised her eyebrows in disbelief. "This is ridiculous. You are absolutely impossible."

"Time's wasting, Cassandra. The sun's setting, and I can see in the dark a lot better than you can. You'd better act fast if you want to stand a chance of beating me."

"If you insist." She set down the tray and the wine, crossed to the rows of practice dummies, and picked up a practice sword and shield, shaking her head as she passed a second shield to me. _"Fen'Harel ver na."_

"Your terrible pronunciation of the sacred profanities of my people offends me deeply. I demand satisfaction." I struck at her again, and she turned the blow and riposted, forcing me to raise my own shield to block. We began to circle each other with playful wariness, testing each other's defenses with occasional feints and jabs. Cassandra and I rarely trained or sparred together, but we had fought alongside each other often enough that I could see some of my fluid Dalish sword forms slipping into her style and some of her Seeker's studied precision in mine. Despite her earlier resistance, an exhilarated grin spread across her face as she unleashed a flurry of blows that I narrowly deflected.

I responded with my own series of cuts and thrusts, and Cassandra deflected each one on her shield or against her wooden blade. All concerns fled from my mind until it held nothing beyond our contest and the simple joy of testing my skills against a worthy opponent. Even so, I realized that the wine I had consumed had slowed my reflexes and clouded my judgment, and that the same must have been true for Cassandra. _I need to keep that in mind_ , I thought, just as I saw an opening in her stance and swung my sword through it with more force than I had intended. What I had meant as a firm tap against her chest struck the top of her head with a sharp crack. I winced and shouted, " _Ir abelas!_ " but Cassandra was already swinging at me reflexively. Her practice sword made jarring contact with my right hand. My apology dissolved into a yelp of pain, and I dropped both sword and shield to clutch my stinging fingers.

"Inquisitor!" Cassandra rushed to my side, her own injury temporarily forgotten, although I saw a swollen lump already rising near her hairline. She grabbed my forearm and squinted down at my scraped, bruised knuckles, apparently forgetting that it was almost full dark and she could hardly see a thing. "Maker's breath, tell me it isn't broken."

I flexed my wrist and fingers and clenched my teeth against the sting of abraded skin, but under that I felt only a persistent, dull ache rather than the cold, sharp shock that would warn of a broken bone. "Just bruised, I think. But did I hurt you? I'm so sorry, Cassandra. It's been a long time since I was able to spar for fun like this. I got a little carried away."

"No. I get worse from Cullen's recruits on most days," she said with no hint of exaggeration. "Come here. I have something to help with that."

Cassandra found a small pot of elfroot salve in a crate behind some archery targets, and I retrieved the wine. We passed Cassandra's half-empty bottle back and forth and tended to our injuries in silence. She noticed me struggling through my intoxication to salve my dominant hand, and said, "Here, let me help. Get it elevated, too. That will keep the swelling down."

So I lay down in the grass, and Cassandra sat on some nearby hay bales and lifted my bruised hand up into her lap. She rubbed the salve into it and I stared up into the darkening sky, watching the stars come out and automatically arranging them into the constellations that Solas and I had once traced and named together: Judex, Eluvia, Peraquialus, Fenrir. I blinked and discovered that tears were slowly rolling down my cheeks. "Does it ever get better?" I said in a small voice.

"If you mean scraped knuckles, yes, I should certainly hope so."

I laughed, an undignified snorting sound that was too close to a sob. "No. You get really literal when you're drunk. I mean heartbreak. Or whatever you want to call this."

She stopped rubbing my hand but didn't let go of it. "And what makes you think I am an authority in such matters?"

I didn't want to share my real suspicions about that yet. Instead, I said, "I don't know, because you're the only one around here except Cole who seems to care about how I feel?"

"That is not what I saw in the Herald's Rest tonight." Cassandra's tone was firm but not unkind. "I think you have been seeing only what you want to see. I think that your friends do not know what to say to you, so most of them have decided not to try and risk being thought a fool."

"They'd be in good company. I know everyone thinks I am one."

"If everyone thinks you are a fool, Inquisitor, then everyone is wrong. Sera is right about at least one thing: none of us truly get to choose whom we love. And it is never foolish to accept your true feelings. Not even in times like these."

"I wish I believed you," I whispered. Yet the unshakable faith in me that she projected, the knowledge that she believed everything she said even if I could not, broke open something inside me and let out the words, like the first trickles of water leaking from new cracks in a dam. "I knew that letting myself fall for him was a bad idea from the start. Solas knew it too. He said as much after the first time he kissed me…"

Before I knew it I was telling Cassandra the entire story of Solas and me, from our first tentative flirtations in Haven and the ways that he'd helped me to tame my nightmares, to the death of Wisdom and the ball at Halamshiral, to his anger over the Well of Sorrows and our final conversation that had ended with me alone and in tears in a cave. I left out very little, not even the things I had feared a human couldn't understand. Cassandra, for her part, listened closely, occasionally making small noises of sympathy or asking for clarification about the meaning of _vallaslin_ or Mythal or the places where I lapsed into Elvhen without intending to, holding my hand all the while. When my words began to catch in my throat and emotion threatened to overwhelm me, she let go of my hand to silently give me the wine. I sat up and put my back against the hay bale, facing away from her so I wouldn't have to watch her reactions while I talked. She took the bottle and drank, then returned it to me, and we passed it steadily between us, matching each other drink for drink. Eventually, the plum wine ran out, and then the red wine, and finally my story did too.

In the comfortable silence that followed, I stared up into the swirling, starry sky above me, hearing the low friendly murmur of the Herald's Rest behind me, feeling the heaviness of my eyelids and the firmness of the earth below me. "I am so sorry," Cassandra finally said.

"I can't believe you listened to all of that. But thank you for doing it." I turned my head toward where Cassandra was slumped over next to me. "So what happens now?"

"In the long term? I do not know. For tonight? If you are remotely as drunk as I am - which I suspect you are - you go to bed and get a good night's sleep."

"Oh. About that. I think I'll stay up for a while. Maybe I'll go back into the Herald's Rest and see if Varric will deal me in for Wicked Grace. I don't want to sleep just yet."

Even in the dark, her disapproving glare was unmistakable. "Why not?"

This was one of the few things I'd left unsaid before. Now I realized that I had to speak it - not only because Cassandra would demand it, but because I truly wanted there to be fewer secrets between us. "Do you remember how I told you that Solas and I - well, how he said that things were easier for him in the Fade? How he used to visit me when I slept?" She nodded. "Almost every night I'd fall asleep and he'd be waiting there. We shared our dreams - for sex, sure, but for adventures too. We were so many different people in so many different places. It was my favorite part of the day." I felt the prickle of new tears in the corners of my eyes as I remembered, even as I understood how ridiculous she must have found it all. _I spent my days trying to save the world and my nights vividly hallucinating with my mysterious wizard lover instead of resting like a normal person. What was I thinking?_ "And now that it's over, every night I'm reminded of him. I even sense him sometimes, right at the edges of my dreams, but he won't come any nearer. I don't miss him any other time, but when I try to sleep…" I drew in a shaky breath and willed myself not to weep.

Long, wordless moments passed before Cassandra said, abruptly and decisively, "I have an idea. Come with me." She gripped my uninjured wrist and pulled me to my feet, then put an arm around my shoulders to steer me. The world spun wildly around me as standing up again left me lightheaded and distantly realizing how intoxicated I really was. I closed my eyes to steady my stomach and let Cassandra guide me, and opened them again when I heard the creak of a door. She had escorted me into the nearby barracks. Before I could ask what she was planning, she lifted a finger to her lips and shushed me. I bit the inside of my cheek and complied.

Cassandra led me through darkened rooms full of snoring soldiers and up a few flights of rickety wooden stairs until we reached the top level of the building. Then she hauled me up a ladder and into a tiny loft tucked up under the eaves, barely large enough for the two straw-stuffed mattresses it contained. She sat down on one of the beds and motioned me toward the other. As she removed her boots and her breastplate, she began to speak in low tones. I was barefoot and without armor, so I curled up on the other bed and watched her and listened.

"I don't know if this will work," said Cassandra, "but earlier tonight you told me that the Fade and what you saw in it could change depending upon where you slept. I know that these soldiers would never have let Solas sleep in their barracks. Maybe because he has never spent time here, it will be enough to keep dreams of him away. I cannot change what happened or take away what he meant to you, but maybe I can give you one peaceful night."

This time, I couldn't stop the tears from coming. "Thank you," I said. "Even if it doesn't work, the fact that you believed me...that you tried..." I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to steady my breathing. _Right. Crying in front of Cassandra. That's how I know I've had too much wine._ "You don't have to stay up here with me if you don't want to."

"Inquisitor, I am so drunk that if I try to climb back down that ladder I will certainly break my neck," she said matter-of-factly, and I burst out laughing. A low grumble wafted up from some of the soldiers below, and Cassandra hushed me more loudly this time.

"Sorry, I'll keep it down," I whispered. I rolled over to face the wall and heard a rustle from behind me as Cassandra lay down as well. "So did we get to do everything you wanted to do tonight?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like in one of those bad novels. Getting drunk and talking about our feelings and fighting and apologizing. Did we forget anything?"

I heard the smile in her reply. "I suppose we missed out on singing maudlin tavern songs about lost love and crying into our ale."

"That's no great loss. Dalish ballads are all a thousand verses long and incredibly boring."

"Who said anything about Dalish ballads?" Cassandra began to sing softly - a human song, popular enough that even I had heard it before, weaving a simple melody through rhyming lines about the end of a romance. I had only heard her sing once before, blending in with dozens of others in the hymn that the survivors of Haven had sung in the makeshift mountain camp. Now her voice was clearer to me, rough and untrained but still able to carry the tune. I didn't really know the song, but I had heard Maryden perform it enough times to be able to fake my way through, and I was just uninhibited enough to join in as best I could.

I didn't think we were singing very loudly, but judging by the creaking and muttering that resumed from under the loft, the soldiers in the barracks did not agree. "Shut the fuck up," one of them groaned, but we kept on singing. Not even half of the refrain had passed before the same soldier bellowed, "For Andraste's sake, shut the fuck up before I kick both of your drunken arses!" I began to laugh uncontrollably. If that man had known that he was threatening the Herald of Andraste and Inquisitor, and a Seeker of Truth who stood a good chance of becoming the next Divine, he would have silenced himself in a hurry - but tonight, against all odds, I could be nothing more than an anonymous soldier annoying her comrades with excessive revelry. Soon Cassandra was laughing too, the song forgotten, and we hushed each other between bouts of giggling until the complaints from below finally ceased.

In the quiet darkness of the barracks, with my head still swimming from the wine, I was surprised to discover that Cassandra's plan had worked. Sleep now beckoned me more seductively than it had in weeks. But in that nebulous place between waking and dreaming, I realized that the time had come to say the one thing I'd left unsaid. "Cassandra?" She responded with a low, half-awake hum. "Did all of this help you, too?"

"I don't understand," she said, her voice heavy and lethargic.

"I saw Cole in the Herald's Rest earlier, after you went outside. He told me some things that made it sound like what happened with me and Solas reminded you of something that happened to you. So this whole thing was for me, but it was for you too. Unless I misunderstood. With Cole, that's always a possibility."

"Yes," Cassandra said, thoughtfully. "It helped."

"If you need to talk about it, I'm listening."

She was silent for so long that I thought she had fallen asleep. I was drifting at the edge of awareness myself, but startled back into consciousness when she suddenly spoke, so softly that I strained to hear her at first. "There was a man in my life, once before. His name was Regalyan. He was a Circle mage from Orlais. We cared very deeply for each other."

"A mage? But I thought that in Circles they weren't allowed to-"

"To marry? No, they are not. Nor are Seekers of Truth. That does not mean that we never fall in love." She took a slow, shuddering breath. "We both understood that our duties would keep us apart in the end. So we took the opportunities we could find to be together when we could. It was not always enough. But it was something." I heard another rustle as she rolled to face me, and looked over my shoulder to see her eyes fixed on me in the dark. "I am still so sorry that Solas hurt you. I wish that he had treated you differently. But I think I also understand what he meant and how he felt when he wanted this to happen in another life."

She sighed, and her words trailed off. I had so many questions for her, most of them as intrusive as anything Sera or Blackwall had ever directed at Solas or me, but I didn't want to interrupt whatever else she might have to say. But finally, the silence became too heavy to bear, and I asked, "So what happened? With you and Regalyan, I mean."

Cassandra rolled over again and curled herself into a tight ball. "He represented the White Spire Circle at the Conclave," she said, shakily.

Understanding hit me more suddenly and painfully than any blow from a practice sword ever could. "I'm so sorry," I said, knowing how inadequate those words were. "I should never have complained this much to you. Or acted like you couldn't understand."

"You forget that I all but asked you to complain. As for the rest, you did not know."

"Nobody knows, do they? Except Cole."

"No."

Tears stung my eyes again as I thought back to those first days and weeks in Haven - to her impatience, her prickly demeanor, her distrust of everyone and everything - and realized what she had been hiding behind it all along. She must have felt so alone, with the world falling apart around her and no one she could confide in. I knew that nothing could change what she had endured, so I said the truest thing in my mind, loosed from my lips by the wine but meant honestly all the same: "You don't have to do this alone anymore, Cassandra."

She took another deep breath, and I heard her whisper back to me, "Nor do you."

After that, there was nothing more to say. Sleep pulled me under before I knew it had arrived, and I was aware of nothing else until a sharp ray of cold sunlight forced its way through the loft's single tiny window and behind my eyelids to wake me late in the morning. Outside I heard the daily noises of Skyhold, the horses in the stables and the soldiers at muster in the courtyard and the merchants hawking their wares, all of it carrying on the same as always. On the opposite side of the loft, Cassandra was still sleeping with her limbs splayed out in all directions on her mattress and faint snoring escaping from her open mouth. My bruised hand ached, my eyelids felt heavy, my mouth was dry, my bladder was painfully full, and the space between my eyes was tight and throbbing with what would prove to be the worst headache of my life. Yet despite it all, a single bright truth floated to the surface of my mind and made all of these discomforts worthwhile: The night before, for the first time in weeks, I had dreamed of nothing at all.

**Author's Note:**

> Story title taken from the song ["Everything Feels Wrong" by Bree Sharp.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQNAQuxX2_s) I know this story is more than a little different from others in the series, but it felt like it had to be told. For better or worse, we'll be back to more angsty makeouts in the Fade (and more Solas actually appearing) in the next story. Thanks for reading!


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